


Oh, They're Gonna Have to Fight Me

by deesaster



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Disabled Character, Deutsch | German, Drift Bond, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Ghost Drifting, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Living Together, Loving Marriage, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Mental Instability, Minor Violence, Newton Geiszler Has ADHD, Night Terrors, POV Hermann Gottlieb, Pre-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Songfic, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-18 00:20:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14200833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deesaster/pseuds/deesaster
Summary: The Drift makes them realize they belong together. Now that they cancelled the apocalypse, there's nothing left for them to do but live out their lives in happiness. That is, until Hermann realizes there's more to the nightmares that Newt keeps having.(In which they don't spend those ten years apart, and Hermann is there to figure it out and save Newt when the Precursors start taking over him.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title, some scenes, and the whole vibe are heavily inspired by this amazing, heartbreaking song: [Laura Marling - Night Terror](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsIKbH9p9zI)  
> Hover on the paragraphs containing German for translations.  
> Warning: this fic is not beta-read and the author is not a native speaker of English.

It starts with nightmares.

Worse nightmares than usual, that is. Their sleep has been plagued with bad dreams ever since they closed the Breach.

But it’s fine, because when they wake up, covered in sweat and shaking away visions of terrible, ancient creatures with intentions so wicked it frightens them, their other half is there for them to latch onto.  

It’s fine, until it no longer is.

Hermann knows the nature of Newt’s nightmares, he feels what Newt feels through that ghost Drift that never really faded, not even years later. The nightmares should have dulled, in time, as Hermann's have. Instead, Newt kicks in his sleep and whimpers, startles himself awake and heaves, more than ever before. It breaks Hermann’s heart.

He’s there, though. He’s there for Newt, just as Newt has been for him. They’ve never truly left each other’s side, since they Drifted.

When the war clock was reset, cheers erupting around them, they itched to be close, shuffling to each other’s sides, Newt’s arm going around him like its place had always been there. When everybody around them brought out the champagne that they never thought they’d get to drink, but had hidden in the nooks of LOCCENT anyway, Hermann dragged Newt back to their lab. Newt hadn’t protested, in spite of the _I’m a rock star now, Hermann, come on, I want some champagne_ that Hermann felt, rather than heard, in the back of his head.

Hermann knew what he saw in the Drift. What he felt. After years of uncertainty and pining, he leaned in, meeting Newt halfway.

Never mind the blood still dripping from their noses, the stench of Kaiju innards, and the exhaustion that they both felt in their bones. Their first kiss was like another sort of Drifting, much more palpable, but just as intimate.

They fell asleep cuddled on the couch in their lab in the early hours of the morning, tucked into each other and with no space between their body and limbs, as the Shatterdome still roared in victory.

 

~*~*~*~

 

They moved to Berlin, Newt’s hometown, seven months later.

They toured the world first, press conference after press conference, award after award, interview after interview, Newt finally achieving that fame he has been wanting and Hermann proving that he’s one of the most brilliant scientists to ever walk this earth.

When they returned to Hong Kong, Marshal Hansen listened to Hermann’s predictions that indicated the possibility of another Breach opening and so, he didn’t decommission the K-Science department. Instead, he asked them to continue their research at the Shatterdome.

But they were tired of military facilities, of metal walls and alarms booming in the middle of the night. Berlin seemed like a more sensible choice.

They bought a house in the suburbs. Single-story, for the sake of Hermann’s leg. The basement was easily turned into a lab, and after they replace the stairs leading down to it with a ramp, Newt buys red carpet to cover it.

_“Why on Earth would you do that, Geiszler?” Hermann asks when he first sees the bright-colored carpet decorating the ramp._

_“Because we’re rock stars, baby!”_

_Hermann shakes his head, biting back a smile._

They end up splitting the lab in two with yellow hazmat tape, out of habit.

They share a bed, however, which definitely isn’t split in two.

Newt cooked for him the first night they moved in. Hermann almost cried, because no one had ever cooked for him before, and even though it was just plain pasta with tomato sauce, he swore he’d never tasted anything so good. ( _Oh, don’t be so surprised, Herms, I have six doctorates, why would I have problems with cooking?_ ) So, Newt cooks for him the evenings in which they aren’t too tired and don’t order in, and brings breakfast in bed on Sundays. Hermann complains about the crumbs, but he secretly loves their Sundays in bed.

In return, Hermann brews tea for them in the afternoons and reads German translations of Pablo Neruda’s poems to Newt before they go to sleep. He rolls his ‘r’s deliberately, because he knows that Newt loves listening to his pronounced accent.

Newt always leaves the toilet seat down for Hermann. Hermann washes the dishes, and irons both of their clothes, because he knows Newt hates doing mundane chores. Newt forgets to turn the TV off when he leaves the living room. Hermann leaves chalk fingerprints on all of their possessions.

Some things don’t change. They still have screaming matches in the lab, they fight over who chooses the radio station and the music, they accuse each other of meddling with their work. Newt forgets to take his medication and his ADHD acts up, driving Hermann up the wall. Hermann’s leg has bad days, souring his mood and making him push Newt away.

Other things do change. Their lab fights often end in passionate sex, anger being doused with affection. When asked to fetch or pass something, Newt no longer tosses carelessly, but gets up and delivers gently, turning the process into an excuse for kissing. Hermann leaves messages to him on the blackboard, varying from ‘Don’t forget to take out the trash’ to ‘I love you’. Newt replies, leaving caricatures of Kaiju behind that no longer anger Hermann, along with tiny hearts (meant for Hermann, not the Kaiju).

_“Marry me,” Newt whispers to Hermann, two years after the Breach’s demise._

_They’re lying in bed, naked and content, fingers tracing skin. Hermann simply kisses him, pulling him close and nodding. Newt grins, jumping out of bed to bring out the rings box that Hermann has already found by mistake, months ago._

_They go to the courthouse the following morning and get married without much pomp. They’ve been acting like they’re married for years, they realize. The rings and the certificate are just physical reassurance. They’re scientists, they love having actual proof._

_But knowing that hospital doors are no longer closed to one of them if the other falls ill helps them sleep better at night. Not to mention that the tax exemptions are welcomed, too._

When he wakes up from a particularly tough nightmare, without waking up Newt as well, Hermann finds comfort in twisting the ring on his left hand, eyes fixed on the warm body next to him. If he snores, as he lightly does from time to time, Hermann knows that his husband is getting the rest he needs. If he twitches and sighs, hinting towards the onset of a nightmare, Hermann kisses Newt’s shoulder and pulls him close, dragging his fingers softly across the shorter man’s scalp and coaxing him out of the nightmare.

But that doesn’t work all the time.

Especially not of late.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Hermann can’t sleep. It’s well past 3 AM, and the frigid February night is making him get out of bed with sordid reluctance. He might as well get some work done. With the utmost care, he removes himself from Newt’s hold, tucking his husband back in once he escapes from the tangled sheets. In the darkness, he can hardly make out anything, but Newt’s slow and steady breathing assures him that everything is all right.

He winces, realizing that if he uses his cane he might wake up Newt. So he picks it up from the middle instead of the handle and he hobbles down the hallway, cursing his leg and hip the entire time. He makes a pitstop in the kitchen, craving some tea before he heads to their lab. Putting the kettle on and waiting for it to boil, he sifts through some science magazines lying on the countertop.

With a tired sigh, he stops the almost-boiling kettle before it can start to whistle, and pours the water in a cup, drowning the teabag of Earl Grey he dropped in earlier. He watches the clear liquid turn yellow, then orange.

He picks it up carefully, realizing he’ll have to drink it in the kitchen and not in the lab, courtesy of his damned leg, because he can’t—

“Hermann?” a trembling half-shout echoes through the house.

Every muscle in Herman’s body hardens. He drops the cup of tea. It crashes on the tiles, hot water soaking his slippers, the pieces of china clinking as they skip on the floor. He grabs his cane with a shaky hand, the sound of its end reverberating through the house as it makes a much louder sound than the crashing teacup. With wide, hurried, and painful steps, he storms out of the kitchen, carelessly stepping on broken china.

A panicked-looking Newt is at the door of their bedroom, eyes wide and shoulders quivering.

Hermann’s stomach plummets to the floor.

“Mein Liebling? Was ist passiert?” he asks, alarmed, not even realizing he switched to his mother tongue. He quickly makes his way down the dark hall, meeting Newt halfway. His free arm automatically goes around Newt’s shoulders, pulling the shorter man close to his chest.

“Ein Albtraum,” he mumbles into Hermann’s shoulder, using German as well. “Mach dir keine Sorgen. Aber du warst nicht ins Bett und es hat mir Angst gemacht. Komm zurück ins Bett, Herm. Es ist sehr spät und ich kann nicht ohne dich schlafen.”

The ghost Drift allows him to vaguely see and feel how Newt woke with a jolt, his gasp loud as he struggled to breathe and chase away the images from the haunting nightmare. How his hand instinctually went over to the other side of the bed, to seek the comforting presence of his husband, but he only found cold sheets. How he got out of bed, the residual adrenaline from his nightmare melding with panic brought by Hermann’s absence.

There’s a twinge of pain in Hermann’s heart that makes him blink and swallow harshly.

“Bist du sicher, dass du in Ordnung bist?” he asks worriedly, carding his fingers through Newt’s hair.

Newt just nods, clinging onto Hermann as much as he can without making the mathematician lose his balance. Hermann presses a long kiss on his hairline, then leans a bit to his side, to place his cane against the wall of the hallway. He won’t be needing it to reach the bedroom, judging by how pliantly Newt adjusted himself in his arms. They’ll support each other on their way back to bed.

“Come on, love,” he whispers, rubbing Newt’s shoulder in a reassuring way. It calms both of them down, and with small, but steady steps, they make their way back to the bedroom.

Newt’s neck is still buried in his shoulder once they sit down on the bed. His hitched breathing and still-trembling shoulders let Hermann know that his husband is not, in fact, all right.  

“Shh, Newt, you’re breaking my heart,” he mutters, embracing Newt tightly with both of his arms.

“They got you, Herm, and they tore you apart… the Precursors, they—you were screaming, and I couldn’t—all I could do is _watch_ and… and they’ll come back, Herm. I know it, I can feel it,” Newt stutters, voice breaking.

Hermann can only hold Newt tighter, his jaw clenching. His hand freezes for a nanosecond in Newt’s hair before resuming its caress.

“Love, it was just a dream. I’m all right, see? And I’m not going away, no Precursor is going to tear us apart. Shall they return, if they ever dare touch our world again, we will fight them, and we will win, _again_. I won’t let _anything_ tear us apart, you hear me?”

Newt nods again, taking a deep breath and starting to calm down. Relieved, Hermann gently lays him down, and he follows shortly, after covering them both with the blanket. He pulls Newt into his arms again. The shorter man hides his face in Hermann’s chest, shivering, hands gripping firmly at the back of Hermann’s pajama shirt.

“Ich liebe dich,” Newt mumbles, before falling back asleep.

“Ich liebe dich auch,” Hermann replies, words muffled by Newt’s hair, worry still eating at him.

 

~*~*~*~

 

It goes on for months, worsening with every nightmare, until they can no longer be called so, because they have certainly turned into sleep terrors. They occur almost every night now.

Hermann wakes up and Newt is screaming.

He rolls over, hip making him grunt in pain, and shakes Newt tightly. He’d left him dreaming peacefully, before falling asleep too, not even an hour before.

Newt can’t tell the difference between reality and dream when he finally wakes up, voice hoarse, forehead and chest drenched in sweat.

Hermann stays awake, rocking him back and forth, until dawn light starts to peer through their curtains.

 

~*~*~*~

 

They don’t talk about their nightmares, because they know they don’t have to. The Drift shares everything in their stead, words are redundant. Newt is the plagued one, and by extension (both through the Drift and their tightly-woven marriage), Hermann is plagued too.

None of the sleep doctors they see are of much help. The medicine they prescribe helps, but not by much. Eventually, it gets better at some point, after almost a year of restless sleep.

One morning, Newt struts into the lab with cheerful energy, as if he hadn’t been whimpering and tossing fitfully all night. It makes Hermann ask if he’d taken his pills yet. Newt ignores his question, not even looking at Hermann.

“I have so many new ideas for research, Herms! Have you seen my recorder? I need it ASAP—also coffee! I need coffee! Like, lots and lots and lots—now where did I put those samples…” Newt rambles instead, jumping from one place to another, making a mess out of his desk and papers.

Hermann raises both of his eyebrows. It’s been a long time since he’s seen Newt so energic; he hasn’t had any new idea in months, Hermann realizes. More than half a year, maybe. Hermann himself hasn’t had any, either. Maybe it’s all starting to turn around.

He watches from his side of the lab how Newt delves into his work, a small smile on his lips. This is a good sign. He doesn’t even mind the mess Newt makes around the lab, as long as he gets to see his husband acting so lively.

But his relief does not last long.

Over the next few weeks, Hermann begins to worry again. Newt starts spending too much time in the lab, forgetting to take his medicine, ruining the sleep schedule that Hermann had struggled to implement, overdosing on caffeine and eating unhealthy amounts of takeout food.

He doesn’t know if he prefers the sluggish, nightmare-ridden Newt, or the hyperactive Newt that seems to have forgotten he has a husband.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Newt snaps at him now. It’s unlike their usual insults and bickering—it’s almost hateful, as though Hermann’s presence irritates Newt beyond measure.  After he realizes what he’s done, Newt apologizes fervently, claiming he doesn’t know what came over him. Hermann forgives him, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

He refuses to show Hermann his work, snatching papers from his husband’s hand when Hermann wants to peek and saying it’s not ready for anyone else’s eyes.

‘ _I’m your husband, though_ ,’ Hermann wants to say, but it feels like a weak argument in this situation. ‘ _Your lab partner, too,_ ’ it occurs to him, and it sounds like much better reason to request to see Newt’s work. ‘ _My eyes are not just_ anyone else’s _._ ’

But he doesn’t say anything, he simply nods with faked understanding, retreating to his side of the lab.

Newt stops doodling on the chalkboard. He also stops randomly telling Hermann he loves him, only whispering it when he climbs into bed at 4 AM, cold hands and feet waking Hermann up. No more random kisses that he used to surprise Hermann with during the day. No more cooked dinners.

But also, no more nightmares.

Hermann tries to be glad.

He tells himself it’s all right, that it’s completely normal for a couple to have periods when they’re distant. Maybe not couples that are Drift compatible, like they are, but Hermann doesn’t have much experience with long-term relationships, so he doesn't really know what's normal and what isn't. There’s only ever been Newt for him.

He tries not to blame himself.

There _are_ days when Hermann is woken up with kisses and slow drags of skin against skin, and he forgets that most mornings he wakes up alone and finds Newt buried in his work in the lab, an absent ‘ _Mornin’, Hermie,_ ’ thrown at him instead.

There are days they spend in bed, no rush to get to the lab and save the world, because the world doesn’t quite need them anymore. Those days feel like there’s another Newt cuddling with him in bed, a completely different one from the Newt that pushes him away in the lab and hardly acknowledges him at times.

There are days they go out together, hand in hand, to take a walk in the park or do the grocery shopping, to go on a date at the aquarium or to hold a joint lecture at the local university.

Those days make him think that nothing has changed, after all, that everything will eventually go back to normal.

 

~*~*~*~

 

They both receive work offers from Shao Industries.

Hermann rejects his in a heartbeat. Berlin has become a home. He has no interest in working for greedy companies that don’t even truly care about humanity’s safety.

Newt frowns. He argues that the pay would be great, since the PPDC isn’t paying them as well as they used to. He’d like to get his hands on that tech, to witness new projects being born, to involve himself in developing new defense systems. He accuses Hermann of growing disinterested with their work.

Hermann yells. They’ve got a marriage to think about, they have a home they’d have to leave behind, and there are no signs of the Breach reopening as of yet. Liwen Shao doesn’t quite need them there. If Newt wants, he can take the job, but he will have to leave without Hermann. Because Hermann isn’t willing to compromise over such a great matter.

It’s the first night they spend apart since they closed the Breach.

Hermann cannot sleep alone in their bed and listens to the beakers being thrown against the wall of their lab. He hears Newt crashing on the couch in their lab, the same couch they bought from Marshal Hansen and had flown over from Hong Kong to Berlin, the same couch they fell asleep together on after they cancelled the apocalypse. Soon after, he hears Newt’s soft snoring.

He wipes furiously at the tears gathering at the corner of his eye, refusing to let them fall.

He refuses to acknowledge he’s genuinely afraid of Newt accepting the job and leaving him forever.

In that moment he realizes he can’t really feel the Drift anymore.

The next morning, Newt kneels before him, apologizing for the way he has behaved, begging for Herman to forgive him, swearing he’d never leave anywhere without him.

Hermann kneels too, hip and leg be damned, and hugs his husband tightly to his chest. They kiss with hunger, as if they haven’t kissed in years. Clothes are ripped off, love bites bloom on their skin, ‘ _Ich liebe dich_ ’s are chanted religiously, eyes shut forcefully as pleasure ripples through their bodies.

 

~*~*~*~

 

To his disappointment, Hermann cannot feel the Drift the following morning, either. He doesn’t mention it to Newt, however. There’s no time, because the biologist climbs over Hermann when he awakes, whispering “good morning, my love,” on a husky voice and grinding slowly. Hermann can only gasp, partially forgetting about his worries.

The next couple of months are quiet and calm, compared to what had passed. They spend more time in bed rather than in the lab, getting to know each other again in every way possible. Newt worships Hermann in whichever way he can, cooking for him daily, making mushy playlists for him with songs that he knows Hermann would like, and drowning him in affection.

Hermann doesn’t remember ever being so tended to or feeling so loved. It reminds him of those first few days after they got together, in which they locked themselves up in their lab and couldn’t keep their hands and eyes off each other.

Newt finally shows him what he has been working on, blushing sheepishly when Hermann praises his work. It’s a crude theory, based on his findings about the properties of Kaiju brain matter, and Hermann doesn’t really see where it could be applied, but it’s still Newt’s work, and Newt’s work is nothing short of brilliant.

It’s not his job to understand xenobiology. He’s a mathematician, he finds solace in numbers and equations, not in theories that are provable by mixing substances in a beaker or dissecting glands and capillaries open.

Newt kisses his hands, his cheeks, and his nose after Hermann finishes reading the paper, and drags the mathematician back to bed.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Their schedules sync again.

They wake up at the same time, fool around in bed until they crave nourishment, then head into the kitchen, nothing but bathrobes on. Newt scrambles eggs while Hermann makes toast, Newt makes the coffee while Hermann feeds the stray cat that has taken a liking to their doorstep.

One of those days Newt will beg hard enough and Hermann’s resolve will crumble, and they’ll let that poor cat inside their house. After they eat, they reluctantly get dressed, then they drink their coffee while quietly scrolling through the newsfeed on their tablets, sharing a snippet of a headline or two if one knows the other would appreciate it.

Then, like a fine-tuned machine, they get up at the same time, Newt grabbing the half-full coffee pot and Hermann grabbing his cane, and head into their lab together. If it’s a Wednesday, they’ll make a video call to the Hong Kong Shatterdome, a smirking Tendo Choi teasing them about their ruffled hair and bruised lips, then directing them to the LOCCENT, where Marshal Hansen awaits their weekly report.

If it’s any other day, Hermann heads to the blackboard, erasing the equation left over from yesterday and starting anew, be it the same equation or another one, while Newt brings out tissue samples from the refrigerator and prepares his notepad.

They change the radio station once every two hours, both getting a turn at choosing it. Newt rambles while he works and crosses the yellow line to Hermann’s side of the lab while he waits for some experiment to process to start make out sessions that end up with Hermann shoving his neatly-arranged stationery off his desk and pushing Newt against it.

Then Newt leaves, going to the kitchen to fix them something for lunch, calling Hermann up when it’s ready or bringing it in the lab, making the mathematician protest at the crumbles they’ll leave behind.

Their afternoons as quiet as of late, that is if they don’t tackle each other’s theories in an attempt to improve their work. Sometimes that leads to bickering and yelled insults, that end up in smiles and laughter as they reminisce that time during the war when they thought they really meant those insults. This is usually the time when Hermann thinks he feels the Drift again, surfacing slowly as if both Hermann and Newt have been moving stones and boulders from the opposing entries of a tunnel that had collapsed.

They leave the lab together mid-afternoon, to cuddle up in the living room in front of the TV, Newt picking a cheesy movie and Hermann rolling his eyes as he quotes every scene. They usually order in those days, spending the time they would have to waste in the kitchen together on the couch. Sometimes Newt falls asleep with his head in Hermann’s lap and Hermann has to shake him awake gently, so he’ll be able to sleep at night. Newt protests, mumbling that he wants to nap, and Hermann shakes his head and leans down, kissing him awake.

Other times, Newt surprises Hermann by stopping the movie and letting Hermann choose a documentary for them to watch. Hermann gratefully does so, and after it ends, he grabs Newt by the hand, leading him to the bathroom. As the bathtub fills with water, they take their time stripping of their garments, unbothered by the gaze of the other as it rests on their naked skin in the harsh electric light. 

Hermann takes his sweet time tracing Newt’s tattoos, memorizing each shape and color, denying his fascination when Newt teases him about it. Newt laughs and helps him into the bathtub, angling Hermann so the mathematician is settled between his legs, his back against Newt’s chest.

Hermann sighs in contentment as Newt deftly presses his fingers into his shoulder blades, working out kinks that Hermann had no idea were there. His touch is intoxicating, hot steam engulfing them, and Hermann forgets about everything that’s been worrying him. The rise and fall of Newt’s chest comforts him, along with the kisses Newt presses from time to time on the junction between his neck and shoulder.

He moans quietly, unable to hold himself back when Newt’s hands trail down his chest, tracing his skin before submerging in the water. He feels Newt hardening against his back and he can’t help but squirm, arousal travelling back and forth through the Drift that Hermann thought had disappeared forever.

They end up making love in the bathtub, water sloshing and spilling from the tub with every move they make in tandem.

Hermann’s leg aches horribly when they get out of the tub, but Newt makes him forget about it by dragging pruney fingers down his ribs, making Hermann bark in laughter against his will. Then Newt carefully envelops Hermann into his robe, after he dries both of them up, and guides them to the bedroom.

Newt fetches their tablets from the kitchen and they spend the following hour reading papers and articles related to their fields, taking breaks from time to time to kiss and share their thoughts.

They fall asleep at the same time, Hermann spooning Newt with their hands entwined.

Neither of them has nightmares anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, hello. I hope you've enjoyed this first chapter and that you'll stick along for the next two that will follow soon! I wish that the fic would end here, with them happy in domestic bliss and whatnot, but regretfully, worse things are to follow :(
> 
> Let me know your thoughts and what you did/didn't enjoy below! :D
> 
> German translations in case you couldn't hover:
> 
> "Mein Liebling? Was ist passiert?" - My love? What happened?  
> "Ein Albtraum. Mach dir keine Sorgen. Aber du warst nicht ins Bett und es hat mir Angst gemacht. Komm zurück ins Bett, Herm. Es ist sehr spät und ich kann nicht ohne dich schlafen." - A nightmare. Don't worry about it. But you weren't in bed and it scared me. Come back to bed, Herm. It's very late and I can't sleep without you.  
> "Bist du sicher, dass du in Ordnung bist?" - Are you sure you're all right?  
> "Ich liebe dich (auch)." - I love you (too).


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to listen to the wonderful song that inspired this fic: [Laura Marling - Night Terror](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsIKbH9p9zI)  
> Hover on the paragraphs that contain German for translations.

It wasn’t meant to last, this second honeymoon of theirs. (They didn’t have one in the first place anyway, they’d decided to spend the money for their supposed honeymoon on better equipment for their lab, and stay an entire week in bed instead, while their new high-tech workstation was being transported all the way from Japan.)

It doesn’t take Hermann long to realize that there’s still something off about Newt. He talks less to Hermann and more to himself, babbling utter nonsense, he doesn’t take his medicine and yet doesn’t exhibit ADHD behavior, and he stops wearing his glasses for some reason.

When Hermann asks him about it, Newt just shrugs, saying they make his eyes hurt. Hermann instantly wants to book an appointment with an optician, but Newt fights against it so vehemently that Hermann gives up. Something about those lights they point in his eye and the machines he has to shove his face into, Newt argues.

He sometimes comes down in the lab wearing his clothes inside out and once he was so distracted that he almost took a sip out of a cup containing bleach instead of his coffee mug. Hermann chastised him and threatened to take him to the optician again, blaming his mishaps on the poor eyesight. But Newt claimed he is simply too focused on his work to notice these details, that his eyesight has nothing to do with it. He promises to be more careful, and Hermann leaves it at that.

They have Mako, Raleigh, and Tendo over for Christmas that year. Newt drives when they go to pick them up from the airport. For a brief second, he loses control of the wheel, and their car swerves on the highway dangerously, making Hermann shout in panic. Newt laughs it off. Hermann forgets about it when they see their friends for the first time in almost five years.

It’s great catching up. Their friends almost skin them alive when they find out they’ve been married for more than three years now, and Mako and Raleigh threaten them with a promise to not invite Newt and Hermann to their wedding, either. Tendo tells them how’s life in the J-Tech department, now that there is no threat of war. Mako talks about her promotion and how good it feels to follow Pentecost’s steps in the military. Raleigh is just happy to assist whichever department needs him in the Moyulan Shatterdome, enjoying the peace and quiet that came with the end of the war. He’d been recently chosen to train the cadets of the new Jager Academy program, and he shares amusing stories of the youngsters’ mishaps.

They spend that week talking and playing board games, making up for lost time. Mako and Hermann scrunch up their noses when they’re forced to go clubbing with the others one evening. They have a snowball fight on another evening, courtesy of Berlin’s weather that overjoyed them with a white Christmas, but Hermann regretfully has to sit that one out because of his leg. He watches from afar, on the porch.

Newt comes looking for him, covered in melting snow from head to toe, after Mako and Raleigh take him out of the snow fight. “This is amazing, isn’t it, Herms?” he says, grinning and looking up at the falling snowflakes.

Hermann nods, grinning too. He isn’t looking up at the sky though, he only has eyes for Newt.

“I miss the ocean, though. Don’t you miss it too? I mean this is great—Berlin is great, don't get me wrong, but I really miss seeing the ocean every day…” Newt says, trailing off.

Hermann tilts his head in confusion. “Newton. You hate the ocean.”

“I… I do?” Newt asks, a puzzling look on his face.

“Yes,” Hermann confirms, grip tightening on his cane. “You are scared of large bodies of water, do you not remember?” he asks in concern, his memory providing him with images of Newt’s hand clutching his arm tightly whenever they left the Shatterdome they were stationed at to observe a Jaeger’s fight with a Kaiju in deep water. They’d be above, in a helicopter descending too close to the fight for Hermann’s liking, Newt’s eyes glued to the two monsters set on destroying each other, one born out of the abyss he fears, and one born out of their own creation.

It’s one of the reasons they chose Berlin. Newt was tired of moving from port city to port city, waking up everyday with an expanse of water at his feet, that both frightened him and excited him with the possibility of a new Kaiju arising.

“Oh, that’s right… I suppose I am,” Newt replies on a noncommittal tone, blinking.

Hermann doesn’t know what to believe, or what to do.

That evening, he finds himself talking to Mako and telling her everything that’s happened the past years, all his worries, all of Newt’s oddities. She frowns in concern and advices Hermann to take Newt to a doctor.

New Year’s Eve comes faster than they’d expected. They drink to their fallen friends, to Chuck, to the Wei triplets, to the Kaidanovskys, and to Pentecost. They greet 2030 with quality vodka and good music.

They’re growing old, Hermann realizes, when it’s only 2 AM, they’re yawning, and they’re not even capable of finishing the second bottle.

When it’s time for their friends to head back to Hong Kong, Hermann is the one who drives. After they say their goodbyes and share promises of visiting each other again, Hermann takes Newt to a clinic, ignoring the biologist’s protest and complaints, which quickly turn into a fit of rage that scares Hermann.

Newt is unwillingly submitted to blood tests, MRIs and CT scans. Hermann asks for forgiveness as they wait for the results, saying that he’s worried beyond measure and he only wants what’s best for Newt.

Newt breaks down and cries into Hermann’s shoulder in the clinic’s waiting room, confessing that he hasn’t been himself lately.

The results come back.

There’s nothing wrong with Newt physically, they say. But they make Newt see a psychiatrist, booking an appointment for the following day.

Newt doesn’t protest; he is used to talking to shrinks, he’s done it his whole childhood.

They return the next day, and Hermann waits impatiently in the waiting room. Almost two hours later, Newt emerges from the psychiatrist’s office, holding two pieces of paper in his hand. A prescription and a post-it with another appointment date written on it.

Hermann almost tears the prescription in his haste to see what is written on it, as he takes it from Newt’s weak hold. He easily recognizes the names of the substances.

His eyes narrow, reading the words over and over again. His husband can’t possibly have schizophrenia.

“I didn’t say he _has_ schizophrenia, Dr. Gottlieb,” the psychiatrist says, when Hermann confronts him. “But I believe the medication could alleviate his symptoms,” they say. “At least until I figure out what other options we have. There isn't much information in the field about Drift-induced disorders, as you can imagine, so we have to make do with what little we got. I expect Mr. Geiszler in five days’ time, for our next appointment.”

Make do? Hermann can't accept a 'make do', this is _Newt_ they're talking about, he can't just—

When they get back to the car, Hermann silently fuming, they mutually decide not to fill the prescription. They end up storing it in the glove compartment. Hermann's knuckles turn white as his hands grip the wheel on their trip back home.

They don’t return to that clinic. They try another two doctors, each one writing out different prescriptions for strong antipsychotics, offering slyly phrased comments through which they avoid admitting they have no idea what's wrong with Newt.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The nightmares return. First to Newt, and then to Hermann.

The next couple of months are dull. They’re out of sync again, no more married bliss. But thankfully, there are no more incidents that make Hermann question Newt’s sanity.

Sometimes, Newt keeps to himself for days on end, not even leaving the bed and worrying Hermann out of his mind. He cries in his sleep, hardly eats and barely speaks to Hermann.  

“I’m not happy here. Let’s go back to Hong Kong,” he tells Hermann one night, after they both wake up from their nightmares.

Hermann frowns. He knows Newt is happy here, or at least he was. He’s not so sure anymore. He doesn’t say anything, he pulls Newt to his chest, tangling his fingers in Newt’s hair.

‘ _He cannot possibly mean that, I know it,_ ’ he tells himself.

During the next few days, Newt enters the lab with determination. He puts his headphones on, blasting some odious metal music that Hermann can hear from his side of the lab. They don’t speak a word to each other all day. Hermann refuses to be bothered by it and is thankful that his husband found the strength to get out of bed and work again. He goes to sleep without Newt for several consecutive days, sighing in defeat when he tries to draw the biologist’s attention and fails miserably.

But when Hermann wakes up early in the morning, Newt is always there, back turned toward the mathematician, and sleeping fitfully. He grunts and fusses, twisting the sheets in his hand. Hermann touches his shoulder, grief taking over him. He can’t do much else. He gets out of bed and heads down in the lab after his morning routine, knowing that Newt will come down as well, couple of hours later.

But one day, Hermann wakes up at dawn and notices that Newt’s side of bed is still made, cold and untouched.

He hurries out of the bedroom, cane shakily hitting the ground. Newt’s not in the living room. Newt’s not in the kitchen. Newt’s not in the lab. Newt’s not in the bathroom. Newt’s not on the porch.

He calls Newt. Newt doesn’t pick up.

There’s no note, nowhere. Not on the fridge, not on the blackboard.

Newt always leaves a note, even if he means to leave for just a few minutes.

Hermann breathes in, then out. He sits on the couch, head in his hands. Eight minutes pass. He counts the seconds ticked down by the grandfather clock in the living room. Four hundred and eighty seconds. No, he cannot wait.

He gets up, wobbling and almost falling before balancing himself with the cane. He’s out the house, door slamming shut behind him.

He checks the grocery store first. Then he asks Herr Meyer, their elderly neighbor, if he’d seen Newt around. The old man shakes his head. He then heads to the park where they usually take their walks. It’s packed with people, enjoying the first real spring day, but none of them are Newt. He goes to the comic book store, where Newts sometimes spends his afternoons. It’s not even opened yet. No sign of Newt.

His leg starts to give out.

With his head full of horrifying scenarios, he heads home. His hip and leg scream with every step he takes. He tunes it out.

On the couch, back home, Newt waits for him. He’s covered in dirt, hunched, head dropped low, chin resting on his chest. He has something clasped tightly in his hands.

“ _Wo warst du_?” Hermann shouts, dropping his cane to the floor and falling at Newt’s feet. He pats Newt over frantically, looking for signs of injury.

Newt drops whatever he’s holding in his lap, then captures Hermann’s hand between his own, stilling the mathematician. “I don’t know, Herm… I… I can’t remember.”

Hermann gets up as fast as his body allows him and sits on the couch, arms flying around Newt’s shoulders, desperately pulling the other man close. Tears fill his eyes, but he blinks them away.

“All I remember is wanting to get the voices outta my head… and I think I went to the pharmacy to get those pills…”

Hermann draws back, letting Newt reveal to him what he has in his lap. The antipsychotics he was first prescribed.

“Newt, tell me you didn’t…”

But when he snatches the bottle, he notices the seal has already been broken. The space in the bottle indicates the absence of one, maybe even two pills.

“…I can’t remember what I did last night, Hermann.”

Hermann drags a hand on his face, then he places it tightly over his mouth, nodding. “All right. All right. Come on, up. You’ve got to eat,” he says, once he removes his hand from his face and steels himself.

But Newt is catatonic. Hermann has to drag him into the kitchen and spoon-feed him some stew. Once they finish the bowl and Hermann wipes the corners of Newt’s mouth with a napkin, Newt stands up and vomits in the kitchen sink.

“Fuck, Herm, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Newt says, reeling back. Hermann catches him, supporting them both against the countertop.

He doesn’t understand what Newt’s sorry for. He washes away the vomit, and wipes at Newt’s mouth again. With one arm leaning on the cane and the other around Newt, he takes the smaller man to the bathroom.

Thankfully, Newt is capable of listening to him this time and removes his clothes by himself. Hermann doesn’t know how he would have managed that with his aching leg. He guides Newt into the shower and helps him wash himself, ignoring the fact that he’s getting his own clothes wet. He looks down and watches quietly as the dirt from Newt’s skin washes down the drain.

A drop of red colors the white tile of the shower floor, before being washed away by the water. With shaky hands, Hermann takes Newt’s head into his hands. Just as he’d feared, a trail of blood links Newt’s nostril to his upper lip. Herman washes it away gently, refusing to let his worry show.

After he’s done helping Newt scrub himself clean, he envelops his shivering husband into a towel and helps him into his pajamas. Then, he gently ushers Newt into bed.

“Hermann, I’m so, so sorry,” Newt whispers one last time, as his eyes close and he falls asleep almost immediately.

Hermann crashes on the armchair in the corner of the room, not even caring about his soaking wet clothes. His hip, leg, and knee throb and ache horribly. He buries a sob of despair into the palm of his hand.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

It _cannot_ happen.

 

~*~*~*~

 

He’s known for a while. Maybe since the nightmares had started worsening, years ago. He knows what Newt sees in his corrupted dreams. He sees it too.

But he refused to believe it. He’s a scientist, he shouldn’t have run away from obvious conclusions and analysis. He should have connected the dots sooner.

Maybe it’s because he chooses to live in their little world of make-believe, in the perfect house in the perfect neighborhood, telling himself they have the perfect little marriage.

There’s only room for the two of them in this world of theirs. It wasn’t make-believe to begin with. It had been truly perfect, for a little while. It has turned into lies because of those _intruders_.

But alas, it is because of those intruders that Newton Geiszler and Hermann Gottlieb got to have a happy ending in the first place.

What a lovely paradox.

 

~*~*~*~

 

He checks Newt’s phone first. It had run out of battery, and while Hermann impatiently waits for it to charge, he drags Newt’s jacket out of the washer, inspecting it closely.

There’s nothing in the pockets. Just lint, an old pack of gum, and 3€ in petty coins. He fails to understand why exactly the jacket is covered in dirt. It hasn’t rained in a week, the snow had melted a month ago, so the ground has been quite dry. What draws his attention is a medium-sized stain, blue-colored, on the right sleeve of the jacket, that oddly looks like…

Kaiju blood.

Hermann frowns at it for a few seconds, as he realizes that Newt has _never_ worn this jacket in the lab, or any jacket, for that matter. He always rolls up the sleeves of the crisp white shirts that Hermann irons for him, revealing the tattoos of his work subjects. Then covering them with yellow hazmat gloves when he was about to ‘get handsy’.

That jacket is ruined, Kaiju blood stains cannot be removed. He throws it away, along with the other clothes that Newt wore last night.

He doesn’t know what to do with the bottle of antipsychotics on the coffee table. He doesn’t throw it away just yet, but he hides it in the kitchen, in an old tea box that he knows Newt won’t ever touch, not even by mistake.

He returns to check the phone. No odd texts, or phone calls. The location tracking feature had been turned off, but it doesn’t stop Hermann from storming to the lab and plugging the device into their workstation, anxious to see if there’s any data residue that would tell him where Newt was last night.

There’s nothing. No traces on the GPS, no possibility to ping a location. Hermann feels like throwing something against the wall. Instead, he installs an untraceable subroutine in the phone’s software, meant to work even on a dead battery. It doesn’t do much to comfort him. He would feel bad for tweaking his husband’s phone with spyware, but he’s not entirely sure that the Newt that wondered the streets of Berlin last night is the Newt he married.

It occurs to him that in those seven or eight hours that Newt can’t account for, he might as well left Berlin, for all Hermann knows.

He leaves the lab, dropping Newt’s phone back into its dock charging station on his way. He picks up Newt’s tablet instead, opening the browser’s search history with trembling fingers. It’s empty, not a single search entry.

Newt never deletes his browser history.

He’s never checked it before, not that he needed to, or wanted to, but he knows that if he would have had to, he’d find records of Newt’s searches dating back to when he bought the device itself. The Drift is helpful this way, letting him catalogue all of his husband’s quirks.

Hermann breathes in, inhaling sharply. The intake of air makes his lungs hurt. He takes his own tablet, as well as his notepad and extra pencils, and walks into their bedroom with slow steps, lowering his cane carefully, so he doesn’t make more noise than necessary.

Newt sleeps peacefully, hands tucked under his pillow, breathing in and out steadily. Hermann’s heart lurches in his chest. He collapses in the armchair, groaning quietly when he lifts his throbbing leg and rests his feet on an ottoman nearby. He’ll work here today. There’s no way he’ll take his eyes off his husband, not anytime soon.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Newt sleeps for sixteen hours straight.

Out of paranoia, Hermann locks the bedroom door and takes the key with him every single time he leaves the room, either for bathroom breaks or to get something to eat. He doesn’t dare to take a nap, even though his aching bones require rest.

Maybe it was just the pills’ fault. Maybe they’re also the reason why Newt’s nose was bleeding.

But it might as well not be the pills’ fault. A shiver travels down Hermann’s spine at the thought.

When Newt wakes up a few minutes after the clock strikes midnight, confused and drowsy, Hermann is immediately at his side.

“How long was I out?” Newt asks, rubbing at his eyes like a child.

Flames lick at Hermann’s heart. “Sixteen hours.”

Newt’s eyes widen.

“It’s all right, Newton,” Hermann says, then leans in to press a kiss to Newt’s forehead. “You just slept peacefully, nothing else.”

Newt nods, absentmindedly.

“Liebling, I need you to focus. Do you remember _anything_ from last night? Even the smallest of details, even an impression…”

Newt focuses for a few seconds, eyes shut tightly. Then he looks up at Hermann, a look of sadness etched on his face. “I’m sorry, Herm, I don’t… I can’t… It’s all a big white blank.”

Hermann brings his hand to the sides of Newt’s face, cupping his cheeks gently. “It’s all right, my love. You must be famished, I’ll get you something to eat.” He hopes that Newt will be capable of keeping the food down this time.

Hermann makes him those grilled cheese sandwiches that he loves. He also brews him peppermint tea, and while he waits for sandwich to grill and the water to heat up, he pays attention to every sound in the house, worried that Newt might attempt _something_.

But Newt quietly gets out of bed and follows Hermann into the kitchen a few minutes after Hermann leaves him alone in the bedroom. He sits down at the table, pulling his legs to his chest and resting his chin on his knees.

“Lass mich nicht allein, bitte,” Newt whispers, looking up at Hermann with wide eyes, when Hermann sets the sandwich and the teacup on the table in front of Newt.

“Nimmer,” Hermann whispers back, bending down to brush his thumb against Newt’s cheek.

 

~*~*~*~

 

In time, things worsen.

It’s a slow process of degradation, and now that Hermann is aware of it, he begins to notice every little change, every step that Newt takes back from Hermann.

It gets to the point in which Newt has outbursts of anger, not necessarily directed at Hermann, although some of them are. He raveges the side of his lab, looking for something that apparently is nowhere to find. He spends hours typing on his tablet, eyes going red because of the strain.

Hermann checks it, hating himself for invading his husband’s privacy, but finds nothing. Empty search history, empty hard drive, empty inbox.

When Newt begins looking around and asking for the pills ( _I’ve got to work, Hermann and I can’t, not with—look, I’ve got to make them stop screaming, I can’t let them take over…_ ), Hermann tells him he’s thrown the bottle away. For a second, Hermann believes Newt might charge at him and strangle him with all his might, judging by the look of pure fury on his face. It shakes Hermann to his very core. Once he composes himself and Newt is down in the lab, he throws the pills away, then goes to their pharmacy to make sure that Newt will never fill the prescription again.

One day, Newt comes home with a black eye, a bleeding nose, and scraped knuckles. He had been gone for hours, running errands. Hermann feels like fainting when he sees him. Instead of offering explanation or reassurance, Newt grins almost wickedly, in a way Hermann has never seen before (and he can catalogue all of Newt’s expressions).

“I stopped a mugging, Hermie, be proud of me,” he says. “If you think I’m looking the worse for wear, you should definitely see the other guy.”

Hermann doesn’t quite believe his story. Newt’s story is loopy and confusing when Hermann asks him the details. He makes Newt hold a chunk of ice to his face while he applies antiseptic to the torn and bruised skin of Newt’s right knuckles. He tries his best at not creating scenarios in his head, but he starts spiraling anyway.

The next Wednesday, Hermann calls Hong Kong LOCCENT without Newt. Tendo and Mako join the videocall he has with Marshal Hansen. The three of them all agree on two things: one, he and Newt should fly there, for tests and observation under the care of the other K-Science doctors, because two, Newt certainly needs help from K-Science specialists.

He doesn’t book any flights just yet. Newt has shown interest in returning to Hong Kong and Hermann is fairly certain that this Newt who wants to make the trip across a continent and a half isn’t quite his Newt.

 

~*~*~*~

 

One night, Hermann wakes up alone, the other side of the bed cold.

He panics, because they’d went to bed together earlier in the night. Glancing at the clock on the nightstand and noticing that it’s not even 2 AM, he would have supposed that Newt headed down to the lab after waking up from a nightmare, which is curious enough already because Hermann would have felt it, since he usually wakes up along with him, but now…

Something tells him that Newt isn’t even in the house anymore.

He gets out of bed and crosses the hallway, palm sweating on the handle of his cane.

“Newt?” he yells. “Newton?”

There’s no reply.

He quickly glances through all of the rooms, then haphazardly throws a coat over his pajamas, grabbing a flashlight and his tablet on his way out of the house.

Struggling with the objects and his cane, he drops the device on the asphalt of their driveway. Swearing in his mother tongue under his breath, he bends down to pick it up, his leg acting up in pain. One of the top corners is shattered, the crack extending over half of the screen. He swears again, then starts praying the device still works.

It does, its bright light almost blinding him, and he breathes out in relief. He quickly opens the application linked to the subroutine he set in Newt’s phone. It takes a minute to configure itself, then it points to the park a few streets over.

He turns the flashlight on, after he shoves the tablet in his coat pocket, and starts treading the streets as fast as he can without being reckless. The sound of his cane hitting the pavement with every step echoes through the quiet neighborhood.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for him to find his husband. Newt is sitting on his bench, hunched over himself, head and face hid by the hood of his jacket. Hermann would recognize his silhouette anywhere, hood or no hood over his features.

He lifts his head once the sound of Hermann’s cane becomes obvious enough to be identified.

“Hermann?” he asks with a stutter, voice shaky.

Hermann reaches his side, all panic vanishing instantly. He turns off the flashlight, then he takes a seat on the bench, next to his husband. His cane falls to the ground, but he couldn’t care less. He clutches the flashlight to his chest, while his other hand finds Newt’s knee.

“What are you doing here, Liebling?” he asks, voice as steady as he can possibly manage.

“I don’t—I don’t know, Herm. I can’t remember how I got here.”

Hermann swallows, hard. It’s fine, he expected that. “Let’s go back home, love.”

Newt doesn’t seem to have heard him, but Hermann gets up anyway, picking up his cane. It is dark, there’s no one in the park at this hour, and Newt looks up at Hermann as though he wants to ask, ‘ _how did I find myself here_?’

“I’m sorry, Hermann. They’re in my head,” Newt says, vulnerability and fear reflecting in his wide green eyes. “I don’t think I’m strong enough to stop them from—from taking whatever they want from me.”

Hermann’s heart twinges in his chest. He lowers himself on the bench again, gripping his cane tightly.

“Newton, listen to me. You are a good man. You’re strong enough to fight them,” he says with conviction. “Do you understand?”

Newt nods weakly, shoving his hands deeper in his pockets and leaning into Hermann’s shoulder. Hermann immediately lets go of the flashlight to sneak his arm around the other man’s body.

“And if they want you, they’re going to have to fight me, as well. I won’t let them take over you,” he whispers, more to himself rather than to Newt.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The following morning, Hermann buys two tickets to Hong Kong.

He tells Newt they’re simply popping over for a visit, nothing major, under the pretense that a temporary change in landscape might be beneficial for them both.

The look on Newt’s face is somewhat odd when Hermann shares the news with him. It shifts from shock to excitement, then to suspicion, all in the span of two seconds. Then he simply shrugs.

“That’s cool, Herms, yeah, let’s do it, dude,” he says, then he turns back to his desk, burying himself in his samples and papers, as though he hadn’t just been informed that he’d be embarking on a fifteen-hour flight that very night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh darn it, this was supposed to be a 3k one-shot, but things escalated and this is gonna be like five times its intended size by the time I'm done with it ahaha. Two more chapters to go! (Unless I get another idea to implement and we're gonna be here until 2035 :) Hopefully that won't happen and I'll be done with this by the end of the week.)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It hurt a lot to write, but I hope it didn't hurt to read (much). Please let me know your thoughts below! :D
> 
> German translations in case you couldn't hover:
> 
> "Wo warst du?" - Where were you?  
> "Lass mich nicht allein, bitte." - Please don't leave me alone.  
> "Nimmer." - Never.


	3. Chapter 3

The Moyulan Shatterdome looks different.

It doesn’t bustle with people, like it once did. Lack of war against alien beings from the Anteverse will do that to this kind of military, Hermann supposes. But back in the day, they had been the resistance and their numbers were sparse to begin with, anyway. It would have made sense for the place to be just as busy at it once was, if not moreso.

But in those six years, the facility has certainly seen vast improvements. The brand-new Mark VI Jaegers that the J-Tech team is assembling are proof enough of that. Newt fanboys around for a long time, and now that Hermann knows that the information he’s now privy to might end up on the other side, the side they’re building those Jaegers to fight against, he fears that bringing Newt here might do more harm than good.

Marshal Hansen and Mako, now the Secretary General of PPDC, along with a new face, Ranger Lambert, greet them when they arrive. If Newt finds this receiving committee too stern and not quite that happy to see them, he doesn’t mention it.

Their old lab is retrograded to them, to both of their delight, as well as their quarters. They both move into Hermann’s old room, the bigger of the two, as they see no point in having separate rooms.

While Newt excitedly reinspects his old working space, Ranger Lambert pulls Hermann aside.

“I’m in charge of making sure he’s not a threat to the cause. Do you have any kind of confirmation that those _things_ have… infected him?”

Hermann shakes his head. “The doctors we saw only suggested that it could be an issue caused by Drifting, nothing more. I researched it: identity disorders, memory loss and distortion, bipolar behavior… He exhibits a bit of each, but none of the pieces fit the bigger puzzle.”

“Well, I suppose we'll have to discuss your theory at length at a later date, then. I’m afraid we don’t have much time,” Lambert says, before nodding his head subtly toward Newt, who is unaware of the discussion taking place. “So, we’ll have to be brief for now, and assume that your presumptions are true.”

Hermann frowns for a second, wanting to contest the Ranger’s seemingly weak belief in his words, but he keeps quiet.

“Your input is highly valued and respected here at this Shatterdome, Dr. Gottlieb, and it’s the reason why we have allotted a sum out of our limited budget for this. At the moment, this issue occupies a high position on our priority list. Now, I understand that the two of you are very close. I hope this won’t cause problems in our cooperation.”

“I understand, Ranger. No such problems shall arise on my part,” Hermann agrees. “There is nothing I appreciate more than professionalism and efficiency in a collaboration, as long as standards are met by both parties, of course.”

“Very well. First of all, preliminary tests must be conducted. My question is, has he shown hostility in similar situations?”

Hermann nods weakly, remembering the scene at the clinic and the protest when Hermann suggested seeing an optician.

“That’s unfortunate,” Lambert continues. “Can we count on you to convince him to come down to the facility? Without involving other means of coercion?”

He looks at Newt, who is happily tapping at the dusty glass of his old specimens, telling them all he’d missed them. It makes Hermann smile inadvertently.

His would risk causing a tantrum worse than the one he threw at the clinic in Berlin. Risk that _thing_ resurfacing and taking over Newt’s consciousness. Threaten it with direct exposure. It can be violent—he recalls Newt’s black eye that lasted for weeks, the bloody knuckles, the look of pure rage on his face when Hermann said he threw the pills away.  

He truly doesn’t have much of a choice, he doesn’t even dream of using the means of coercion that Lambert hinted at.

“You can, sir,” he says.

“I’m glad I can. Your cooperation is vital,” Lambert says, clasping Hermann’s shoulder firmly. “We expect you both in the morning at the facility. Use your comm if there’s any problem… If he refuses to cooperate, that is. My team will be there in the blink of an eye.”

Hermann barely has time to nod, before Newt’s voice startles them both.

“I hope you’re not flirting with Dr. Gottlieb over there, Ranger. He’s most definitely taken,” Newt shouts from the other side of the lab, finally noticing the quiet exchange between Lambert and Hermann. The grin on his face is the most sincere and bright one Hermann has seen in days. It gives Hermann hope.

The mathematician feels his blood rushing to his face. If Newt notices his blush, he probably blames it on the public reaffirmation of their relationship and not on the fact that he has been caught mildly conspiring against his husband.

 

~*~*~*~

 

They have to sedate Newt, because when Hermann mentions checking out the medical facility the next morning, suggesting that he use a check-up in light of recent events, Newt lashes out, yelling that he did not come to Hong Kong for this, that he feels utterly betrayed. He breaks a lamp and a chair, his actions gluing a shocked Hermann to the wall and making him call Lambert’s team.

The doctors are prompt and efficient, sedating Newt quickly, without causing any more damage, to either furniture or people. Hermann helps them move Newt on a stretcher, then follows them as closely as he can, cursing his bad leg when it hinders him. He gives a full statement when asked to, summing up all the symptoms, the visit to the Berlin clinic, his own observation and theories, and a characterization of Newt’s behavior.

They start a series of MEG, MRI and other brain scans. Hermann stays behind the tall glass of the lab, observing with his heart pounding loudly as they move Newt from one machine to another. Lambert paces the observation room restlessly, while Hansen sits quietly in one corner, arms folded against his chest. One of Mako’s dainty, but strong hands rests on Hermann’s shoulder. Both Hansen and Lambert keep asking questions.

“Let me make sure I got it right. So, your theory is that when Dr. Geiszler Drifted with that Kaiju, the hivemind he exposed himself to connected _his_ mind to theirs? And you know this how?” Lambert asks for what feels like the millionth time to Hermann.

Hermann sighs deeply. “If you aren’t already aware of this, Newton and I are Drift compatible,” he admits. He has refrained from using this detail to explain his reasoning, because he feels it’s rather personal, but now he has no choice.

“After we both Drifted with the second Kaiju brain, the ghost Drift has allowed me to sift through his consciousness. His dreams have reflected my theory, as well as… Well, sir, I cannot quite define it; as you well know, the Drift is nothing short of intangible. But there are many things that can be found in the Drift, and very few of them, if none at all, are false. That person you see in there, Ranger, is not entirely Dr. Geiszler.”

Hansen nods. “Stacker trusted you, the both of you, in fact. If your judgement was good enough for him, then it’s more than good enough for me, too. We’ll do everything we can around here to fix this. Lambert will make sure of it himself.”

“Thank you, Marshal,” Hermann says, not taking his eyes away from Newt’s still-sedated form on the other side of the glass.

It’s a good twenty minutes until one of the doctors in charge emerges from the lab, after the entire team had been huddled around the results.

She posts a scan of Newt’s brain on a light panel in the waiting room. It should be blue and black, Hermann is sure. But there were sections of it encircled with a red marker and shaded harshly. Hermann identifies them as the frontal and occipital lobes. He’s no biologist, but he knows that those are the parts of the brain that make you think, move, speak, and see, respectively. Information processing, cognition, motor skills.

Does this mean that…?

Yes, the doctor confirms. Newt’s brain is not entirely his own anymore. There’s unusual activity in those lobes, odd brainwaves, even as Newt sleeps—

“What options…?” Hermann starts to ask but cannot bring himself to finish the question.

“Hospitalization, to begin with. We cannot allow Dr. Geiszler to wander around the base—this is an advanced military facility, there are higher things at stake. Isolation is a must. Then, medication. But we doubt that this is a viable solution. Per Dr. Gottlieb’s statement, antipsychotics have had a negative output so far. We'll consult more on the matter in the next days. Electroconvulsive therapy is a good and safe option, until we conduct more research. If any other solution fails… our last resort is neurosurgery, in the form of either deep brain stimulation or ablative psychosurgery.”

Hermann’s body feels like lead. His stomach contracts. If he’d eaten anything, he would have thrown up. His feet are glued to the flood, his head feels like it’s about to fall off his shoulders and roll on the floor.

Mako protests vehemently at the allusion of lobotomy—something about 21st century, decency, and ‘do better’. Hermann tunes her out, as well as everything that happens around him.

 

~*~*~*~

 

They take Newt back to their room, instead of locking him up right away, granting Hermann a favor. They're allowed to have one last day of pretended normalcy before…

Well, before they stop pretending their life is normal.

He tucks Newt into bed and resists the pull to go to sleep next to his husband. The jetlag is catching up with him, but he can’t afford to rest.

He steps out in their old lab, and a wave of melancholia hits him hard. He digs into Newt’s desk, where he knows he used to keep a bottle of vodka. He doesn’t find it, but he isn’t too surprised. They cleaned this lab five years ago, before they moved to Berlin, why would Newt leave that bottle behind—

His fingers find something else in that drawer. He takes it out, curious as to what that seemingly empty drawer has been hiding. At first, he thinks it’s Newt’s old iPod, but a closer look informs him that it’s actually a recorder.

He presses play without a second thought.

“ _Kaiju/human Drift experiment, take one.”_

The voice of his husband makes something coil in Hermann’s chest. Is this…?

_“The, uh, the brain segment is the frontal lobe. Um, chances are the segment's far too damaged to Drift with.”_

No, it can’t be.

_“Unscientific aside: Hermann, if you're listening to this… well, I'm either alive and I've proven what I've just done works… in which case, ha, ha, I won.”_

No, no, no.

 _“Or… I'm dead and I'd like you to know that it's all your fault. It really is. You know, you drove me to this. In which case, ha, I also won. Sort of. I'm going in in three… two… one_.”

The tape plays garbled sounds for a minute or two, until Hermann hears his own voice on the recording.

“ _Newton. Newton! What have you done?”_

Hermann collapses into Newt’s chair, swiveling backwards. The tape dies. Hermann plays it again. When it’s done, he plays it a third time.

He plays it until it runs out of battery and Hermann clutches it so hard it the plastic holding it together cracks a bit.

“You were never supposed to hear that.”

Hermann twists around in the chair. Newt is standing in the doorway, face swollen from sleep, clothes wrinkled and hair messy.

“It’s not your fault, you idiot, don’t you go thinking otherwise. I was a little shit back then, frustrated and childish. That is all this tape is about. Don’t you fucking dare blame yourself for this,” he says, crossing the lab and leaning against his desk, centimeters away from Hermann.

“It _is_ my fault, Newt. Had I been there earlier—or had I taken you more seriously when you pitched this ridiculous idea…”

Newt gently takes the recorder away from his hands, and throws it in a trash can under his desk. Then he takes Hermann’s hands into his own.

“Dude, without it we couldn’t have saved the world. It’s all right, Herm. It was worth it, no matter the price I gotta pay now. And for the last time, _it wasn’t your goddamn fault_.”

Hermann’s eyes are brimming with tears. “Newt, this morning—”

“I wasn’t myself. I’m sorry you had to see that. But I’m in control now, don’t worry.”

Hermann gets up with a wobble, only to be steadied by Newt’s strong hands that are still holding his. He takes a single step forward, closing the little distance between him and the biologist. Newt lets go of his hands in favor of encircling his arms around Hermann’s trembling frame.

“You cannot imagine how sorry I am that it has come to this,” he confesses into Newt’s shoulder.

“Why are you sorry? Don’t be sorry, Herms, you did well. You’re wonderful, you’ve been great with me after all the shit I’ve put you through—there’s no way you’re at fault here. How long do we have?”

“A day. They’ve agreed to give us a day.”

Newt’s hands draw comforting patterns on Hermann’s back, gliding across the soft material of his cardigan. “A day, huh? I can work with a day. It’s not enough, a lifetime with you wasn’t going to be enough, but hey, it’s all we’ve got, right?”

“Don’t talk like that, moron,” Hermann grumbles, clutching at Newt’s sides.

Newt lets out a bitter chuckle. “It’s true either way, dude. I can’t fend them off much longer. They’re angry, so angry. Mostly at you, because you’re the reason why I fight them, you know?”

Hermann pulls back just a little bit, to look him in the eye. “Newt, I’m going to find a way. We’ve beaten them once already, we can do it again, you and I.”

Newt smiles sadly. “I know. I wouldn’t expect anything less from you. They might be angry at you, but they also fear you. And for good reason, too. They’d be stupid not to fear you.”

“They _are_ stupid, for thinking they can just invade my husband’s mind without suffering the consequences.”

Laughing again, Newt plants a short kiss on Hermann’s lips. “Come on, let’s go back to bed so we can take a nap and then spend the day _not_ saying goodbye because this isn’t a goodbye—”

Hermann whacks him on his arm. “Damn right it’s not a goodbye. Don’t even mention the notion of goodbye again.”

Newt yelps, lifting his palms up in surrender, a smile tugging up at the corner of his lips. Hermann drags him back to their room, grip on Newt’s arm a bit tighter than necessary.

 

~*~*~*~

 

They don’t get out of bed until their time is almost up. Mostly because Newt is tired and sleepy, and because Hermann holds on to him like he means to never let go.

Newt hums rock ballads, Hermann chases the shape of his tattoos as he buries himself further into Newt’s side, as if he could just slither in through his ribs and make a home for himself in Newt’s chest. Newt kisses the crown of Hermann’s head fondly when Hermann wishes out loud that this moment would last forever.

Hermann recites random verses of Pablo Neruda’s, as accurately as his memory serves him, while Newt toys with the buttons of his cardigan, listening with wide eyes. Hermann wills himself not to think of the hours they spent together each night, early into their relationship, not a sign of Precursors except for the nightmares they’ve always had, Hermann reading from a dusty poem book and Newt listening and sighing in content with his head buried in Hermann’s chest.

_I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,_

_I love you directly without problems or pride:_

_I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,_

_except in this form in which I do not exist and neither do you,_

_so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,_

_so close that your eyes close with my dreams._

 

“Sonnet XVII, right?” Newt mumbles against his chest. “It’s always been your favorite.”

“It has,” Hermann admits. “It reminds me of the Drift.”

“Hermann?”

“Yes, Liebling?”

“I love you, too.”

Their kiss is almost painful, as they try to still their breathing, to prolong the moment, to refrain themselves from shedding tears.

 

~*~*~*~

 

They eventually get out of bed, two hours before their time is up. They go to a nearby restaurant, Hermann making idle threats at Newt because of his tasteless Last Supper jokes, and finish their day with a walk, that has to be regretfully cut short by the rainy weather.

Ranger Lambert, along with the head of the medical team, await them at the entrance of the Shatterdome.

“Laters, Dr. Gottlieb,” Newt says, winking at Hermann and taking off with the doctor without a proper goodbye to his husband.

Hermann doesn’t know if Newt deliberately said goodbye this way to make it easier for the both of them, or if Newt had already given in and it wasn’t really his Newt that was being taken to the medical facility.

Lambert clasps Hermann’s shoulder, like he did back on their first day. Hermann almost flinches.

“We’ll take good care of him, Doctor,” he assures Hermann before taking off as well.

And so, Hermann is left all alone at the entrance of the Shatterdome, people walking past him without giving him the smallest speck of attention.

 

~*~*~*~

 

He doesn’t visit Newt the first day. He locks himself up in the lab, going through Newt’s work over the years and searching divine inspiration. He tells himself it’s because he’s busy and he should get work done instead of spending the day with his nose glued to one-way glass. Not because he doesn’t want to see his husband institutionalized, locked up for his own safety, as well as the world’s.

In the evening, he receives a report from Lambert, as per Hermann’s request to receive daily updates. It’s short, saying that they’ve settled Newt in the medical facility and keeping him under close observation. No sign of the Precursors taking over, nothing special. Hermann breathes in relief.

He can’t go to sleep, not when he’s grown so accustomed to Newt’s shape melting into his own on every mattress they’ve shared in the past six years (except for that night when they _truly_ fought for the first time, when their Drift faded and never really recovered after, the night that let Hermann know that something is terribly wrong but he’d refused to listen to reason).

He works himself to exhaustion, leg cramping in the uncomfortable swivel chair, desk drowning in Newt’s old papers as he looks for a clue, a fragment of information, or a chunk of an idea for Hermann to exploit. He falls asleep late into the night, head resting on the papers, back hunched in an awkward position. He’s too tired to even notice that he’s not in the bed, not next to his husband.

He decides to visit Newt on the second morning after his admission. He calls it his motivation to get back to work; seeing Newt might trigger an efficient work reflex, fueled by the will to get his husband out of there faster.

He expects to see Newt in a hospital bed, reading or perhaps listening to his atrocious music, bored out of his mind because they won’t allow him internet access. He almost smiles at the mental image of Newt whining and complaining, kicking underneath his blanket and wrinkling the sheets.

Instead, the one-way glass shows him something else entirely.

Newt is seated in a metal chair, wrists and ankles tied securely to the armrests and legs of the chair. His head is drawn back as he stares at the ceiling, neck turning and twitching fast once every few seconds, as if it’s the body of a threatened snake. His hands contort, knuckles white and fingers trembling angrily as they grip the armrest. One of it is bandaged, the once-pristine gauze tainted with traces of blood. The leather restraints dig into his wrists. Hermann can’t see very well from this distance, but he’s certain that they’re leaving ugly welts on his skin.

“What is the meaning of this? We’ve agreed upon standard hospitalization! This is how you’d treat a lunatic in an asylum, or a war prisoner! Explain yourselves this instant,” Hermann yells at the personnel that received him.

“Dr. Gottlieb, sir,” a shy and scared assistant approaches him. “He tried to leave the facility last night, and he would not respond to reason. We had to sedate him, and when it wore off, we had to restrain him to prevent him from harming himself. He attempted to break the window.”

Hermann takes a deep breath, willing himself to calm down. “Let me in, I wish to speak to him.”

“Sir, we do not advise—”

“I do not care. Open this door, _now_.”

The assistant complies, unlocking the sliding metal doors from the security panel. Hermann steps in hurriedly.

Newt’s head moves quickly in Hermann’s direction and his eyes light up as they recognize the visitor. There’s something else entirely lurking behind the lit-up expression that Hermann cannot place.

He wants to step closer, to touch Newt’s face, to assure himself that Newt is all right, but his gut tells him to keep his distance.

“Hermie, thank fuck you’re here—You’ve got to let me out, they’ve been treating me horribly. I can’t believe you let them lock me up and treat me like I’m some sort of rabid animal—” Newt laments, emphasizing his point by forcing his restraints and twitching violently in the chair.

Hermann almost believes him for a second. His gut tells him that he needs to rush to Newt’s side and untie him. But he studies Newt’s face instead. He’s terrified, face twisted into a look of despair. His eyes, however, aren’t clouded by emotion, pupils at a normal size.

“Newton. You’re not yourself. You cannot, and you _will not_ let them take control this easily,” Hermann speaks with conviction, clicking the floor tile underneath his feet firmly with his cane.

Newt’s face shifts, his expression contorting into a sneer, lip curling upwards slowly. The desperation that Newt used to plea with earlier is entirely gone.

“He called for you before he gave in. Too bad you weren’t here to see it, it was a marvel. He fought it, he really did. Too bad he wasn’t strong enough.”

Hermann feels bile rising to his throat as he watches how Newt violently struggles with his restraints.

“Stop it! You’re hurting yourself,” he exclaims, unable to take his eyes off the leather rubbing harshly against Newt’s wrists and ankles.

Newt just laughs maniacally, throwing his head back. After a few seconds, he turns his head back toward Hermann, suddenly adopting a stern, steeled expression. “Leave, or I’ll break his limbs right here and now,” he threatens in a deadpan voice.

Hermann can’t stop the gasp that escapes his lips. “You can’t, you wouldn’t…”

“Wanna try me?” he asks defiantly, growling.

Hermann takes a step back defensively.

“Pleasure seeing you, Hermiekins. Do stop by again soon,” the vile creature says, manipulating Newt’s face into a sneer again.

Hermann turns around, conflicted between disgust, worry, and fear. He bangs on the metal door, and it slides apart immediately, letting him through.

“Send the security footage of the room over to me immediately,” he tells the assistant, before turning around on the balls of his feet and hurrying back to the lab.

Upon arrival, he empties the contents of his stomach in the sink on Newt’s side of the lab. He spends the next few minutes retching and dry heaving, supporting himself by gripping tightly at the metal frame of the sink.  

Then, after he somewhat recovers, he reaches for his tablet, opening the security footage that had thankfully been emailed to him. He has to make sure that Newt’s captivity and restraint is warranted.

The shattered screen lights up with black and white images flashing rapidly as Hermann increases the speed of its playback.

It starts of with the doctors settling Newt in, a bustle of people coming in and out, setting up machines and talking to his husband. This goes on for almost the entire day, Newt sitting calmly on the edge of the bed and twiddling his thumbs as they draw blood and hook him up to monitors.

There’s a moment, late in the evening, when he gets up to stretch his legs, freeing himself from the machines that monitor his brain activity. He walks around the room, pace quickening with every full circle he makes. It’s almost like he maps the space, searching for weak sports and memorizing each nook.

He tries to make contact with a doctor. A member of the staff comes in, and tries to guide him back toward the bed. Newt refuses to sit down and tells the doctor something, perhaps asks her something. But the woman shakes her head and leaves the room. Newt shouts something, after she leaves. When he goes unheard, he paces the room once more, before stopping in front of the window and throwing his curled-up fist at the window of the room.

His body spasms in anger as he collapses to the ground, left hand pulling his hurt one at his chest. By the time the team of doctors barges in, he lifts himself off the ground, throwing punches left and right with that same hand he wounded, in an attempt to ward off the staff swarming him. One of them gets close enough to piece a syringe full of sedative in Newt’s neck.

Then, they tie an unconscious Newt to the chair that Hermann saw him earlier in. They first try to tie him to the bed, but the railings rattle unsteadily when Newt fights the sedative. Hours pass without any movement, but Newt eventually starts waking up, stretching and stirring as much as he can in the chair. The footage then shows Hermann coming in. Their exchange looks surreal as Hermann watches it. The recording comes to a halt.

He takes a deep breath before picking up the closest material of Newt’s research and distracting himself with work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we've passed what's worst now :D Initially, this was much harsher, but I've modified some elements to make the content milder, upon realizing that I have no idea how to tag certain things that could be considered triggers.  
> I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far and that you'll stick with me for the last chapter as well :D Let me know your thoughts below!


	4. Chapter 4

The reports that Hermann receives in the following days are lengthier. They describe fits of anger and attempts of self-harm, as well as trials with different types of medicine that only seem to diminish Newt’s control over his own consciousness.

Hermann tries to visit him daily. Sometimes, the real Newt surfaces, telling Hermann he has no idea how much time passes between the struggles for control over his body, how sorry he is that he’s not strong enough to fight it. He lets himself be tied and drugged, but still finds the strength, somehow, to whisper words of assurance to Hermann, to encourage him to carry on, as if Hermann is the one fighting an ancient hivemind race that tries to manipulate his brain and not him. It makes Hermann’s heart twist painfully in his chest.

Newt is weak when he’s himself, the medicine making him sleepy and sluggish. His hair lost its shine, sticking lifelessly to his forehead, and his stubble is growing into an unkempt beard. The chestnut brown locks that used to reflect the sunrays so enticingly is now turning into limp salt-and-pepper, making Hermann realize that his husband is no longer young and strong. His hands are cold and clammy when Hermann holds them in his own, skin whiter than paper. He falls asleep squeezing at Hermann’s hands, asking Hermann not to go.

Other times, and more often than not, he’s met with the invader, tied to the bed that the team had reinforced. ‘ _Get the hell out of here, I fucking hate you, I don’t want you here, stop fucking talking already, I never want to fucking see you again_ ,’ are its standard replies to anything that Hermann attempts to convey. However, Hermann faces him bravely, trying not to let the words get to him. No matter what the creature might say, he spends at least twenty minutes in the room. He only leaves if he is forced to, if Newt’s behavior becomes too violent to manage.

There are also days when Hermann comes to visit and Newt is sedated, in the aftermath of another episode. Or days in which he’s in some other place in the facility, submitted to different kinds of medicated treatment or put in isolation if the Precursor in his mind takes over entirely and endangers both Newt and the others around him.

He spends the rest of his time brainstorming for ideas, rummaging through Newt’s research on the hivemind and his own predictions, writing down theories and hypothesizing different scenarios. He has Newt’s work sent over from their house in Berlin, and he spends four entire days, without sleeping, pouring over everything that Newt has been working on in the past five years. He sends his work over to Lambert’s team at the end of each week, but he gets the feeling that his own reports aren’t quite taken into consideration.

One evening, after almost three months, he receives a report saying that they’ve run out of medicated options to try. None of the drugs they’ve administered have had any positive effect on Newt. The news shake Hermann. It means they want to move to something more drastic, a more hands-on approach. They’re optimistic about it. Hermann only sees it as something that could physically damage Newt’s brain irreparably.  

‘ _Research and tests indicate that electroconvulsive therapy is a viable next option for treatment. Conducted after the administration of a short-acting anesthetic, as well as a muscle relaxant, ECT constitutes a low-risk treatment plan. Its purpose is mainly dissolving the neural connections in the patient’s brain that have failed to be weakened by medicated treatment. This is proven by the latest analysis, which shows that the neural bridge between the foreign presence and the patient has remained unaffected in the first ten weeks of treatment._ ’

Hermann rereads this last paragraph of the report multiple times, before he notices another document attached to the main file. It’s a consent form for the electroconvulsive therapy, that needs to be signed by Newt’s next of kin. It already contains Lambert’s own signature. He scans it for a second, before closing it without even considering filling it out. He then returns to the report, reading it again.

It’s another five seconds before the idea fully forms in his head.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Hermann’s leg almost gives out on his way to Ranger Lambert’s quarters. He winces as he goes up the short staircase leading up to the room. Using the cane to tap loudly and impatiently at the metal door, he supports himself on the stairs’ railing as he catches his breath.

A ruffled Lambert emerges shortly after, barefoot, dressed in a wife beater and black pajama bottoms, dog tags clinking on his chest. He was obviously just awoken from sleep.

“Dr. Gottlieb? It’s the middle of the night, what could you possibly—?”

“I need a functional Pons system,” Hermann says, fast and breathlessly.

Lambert just blinks slowly, once. “Wha—why would you…? Wait, no. Gottlieb, you can’t.”

“Listen to me, Ranger. You’ve been inside a Jaeger, you know what the Drift is. You might not have been completely compatible with your partner, as I’ve heard, but Drifting with a Pentecost is still a marvelous thing. Newton and I, we’ve experienced it too. 98.7% Drift compatibility, we tested it after we saved the world by Drifting with that disgusting Kaiju brain. And we did it because _my husband_ needed someone to share the neural load with. This is what he needs now, as well. Someone to share that horrid neural load with. I cannot believe it took us—me!—this long to realize this.”

After Hermann finishes his speech, eyes wide in excitement and breathing still rugged, he waits for Lambert’s reaction. It comes far too slowly for Hermann’s liking.

“You’re one insane bastard, Gottlieb, I’ll give you that. Both you and Geiszler. But you must understand I cannot authorize this—”

Hermann feels his face reddening. “What do you mean you _cannot_? It makes perfect sense! I have the math, the coding needed for the system right here,” he articulates fast, reaching in his pocket for the wrinkly pieces of paper on which he hurriedly finished writing the coding mere minutes ago. “I wrote it myself, this could most definitely work and you _must_ —”

“Dr. Gottlieb, I hadn’t finished. I can’t authorize it _right now_. It’s the middle of the goddamn night! We’ll discuss your plans in the morning, all right?” Lambert talks over him, interrupting his rant.

“Oh,” Hermann exclaims, realizing that it makes perfect sense. “Why, yes, of course. I shall see you in the morning, Ranger. I bid you a good night,” he says, straightening up and saluting.

Lambert simply snorts before slamming the metal door in Hermann’s face.

 

~*~*~*~

 

He’d been restlessly waiting outside Newt’s room for fifteen minutes when Tendo Choi finally rolls in the equipment on an industrial platform trolley, Mako, Raleigh, Lambert, and Hansen trailing closely behind him.

“Hermann, are you sure about this? We don’t want you compromising yourself as well. Why don’t we let the doctors exhaust their options before trying such radical things?” Mako tries to change his mind.

The six of them are crowded in the observation room; Hermann feels like there isn't enough oxygen for them all in the small space. On the other side of the glass, a twitchy Newt paces the room. He’s been docile enough as of late to be free from restraints and he’s not aware of Hermann’s plan yet.

Hermann busies himself by thoroughly checking the Pons system, even though Tendo assures him thrice that it’s in perfect condition and already tweaked. He shakes his head.

“With every day, the Precursors tighten their hold on him. By the time we exhaust other options, there might be no Newt for me to Drift with. And well, if this doesn’t work, then more details will be revealed to us, assuming I return with my sanity intact and with valuable information.”

“With your sanity intact? Hermann, we cannot let you put your mind at risk, you’re a valuable addition to the PPDC, not to mention our _friend_ ,” Raleigh argues loudly.

“I find that I do not care. If I… get infected as well, do what you must. God Almighty knows that if both Newt and I are corrupted and turned to their side, we would torch this place to the ground together—and I would hate for that to happen,” Hermann says, smiling bitterly. “But believe me when I say that the past three months, no, the past year, have been absolute hell for me. For Newt, even more so. Thus, forgive me if I would rather expose myself than let Newt fight this on his own.”

Raleigh and Mako nod sympathetically, each coming to hug him. Tendo is quiet and thoughtful, realizing that Hermann needed a lot of courage for that speech and deciding to let the man be. Lambert and Hansen talk in hushed tones in the corner of the room, and when Hermann raises an inquiring eyebrow in their direction, silently daring them to speak their mind, Hansen finally says something.

“Let us monitor the Drift. There is no way for us to know if something goes wrong from this side of the glass and it makes me uneasy.”

Hermann shakes his head. “We would have to relocate to LOCCENT, the transfer would jeopardize Newton’s frail state of mind. I believe it would be best if it were only me in the room.”

Lambert exhales loudly, as if he wants to protest, but neither he nor Hansen say anything else to contradict or stop Hermann. The mathematician is satisfied with their compliance, and in this moment he realizes that he’s about to set his idea in motion. His head starts swimming.

“Now, I hardly wish to have a mental breakdown in front of you all, so would you please allow me a small moment of privacy to compose myself before I proceed to Drift with my possessed husband? I’d much appreciate it,” Hermann says, still twiddling with the Pons and choosing to use dry humor to cover up his emotions.

“Best of luck, Doctor. We’ll wait outside until you return, hopefully with good news,” Lambert says, ushering the rest of the group out. “Security will be monitoring you and they’ll intervene if Dr. Geiszler causes any trouble.”

“Thank you, Ranger,” Hermann says, clearing his throat.

He takes one minute to brace himself for what he’s about to do, taking deep breaths. Then he carefully places the equipment back on the platform trolley and opens the door to Newt’s room. He doesn’t roll in the equipment just yet.

At the sound of the metal doors opening, Newt turns around, alerted.

“Hermann! Hey, hi. God, it’s so fucking good to see you,” Newt says excitedly, crossing the room to embrace Hermann tightly.

Hermann hugs back, hiding a smile in Newt’s shoulder. “You’re having a good day, I see.”

Newt pulls back, smiling as well. “Yeah, I’m like, ninety-nine percent in control, dude. It’s an _awesome_ day, especially now that you’ve come visit. I haven’t seen you in so long and I’ve been missing you. Why haven’t you visited?” Newt’s enthusiasm turns into a sad pout. “I mean I get why you wouldn’t want to, I must be so fucking—”

Hermann can’t help but interrupt him. “Newton, love, I’ve visited you every day this week. Last week, as well, every day but for two which you spent in isolation in another wing.”

“You—you have? I don’t… I don’t remember. I can’t even remember the last time I saw you,” Newt confesses, a devastated look of confusion and sorrow on his face. “I’m sorry, Herm. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Hush, do not apologize,” Hermann says hotly, pulling Newt into his arms again. Newt sniffles, resting his forehead on Hermann’s shoulder.

“Why was I in isolation?” Newt asks quietly.

Hermann pulls him closer, sighing. “Well, Newt, you attacked one of your doctors,” he reveals with difficulty, pained by how Newt freezes in his arms, muscles stiffening under his palms. “You,” he tries to continue, swallowing hard. “You also took down one of the security officers that intervened, stole his taser and used it on another member of the staff.”

“Fuck,” Newt shudders. “Fuck, Herm, I had no idea—I can’t remember any of that. I’m so sorry. “

“Do not fret, nobody suffered serious injuries.”

Newt continues mumbling apologies into his shoulder, clinging to Hermann for dear life, until Hermann gently puts some distance between them. He’s come here for a reason, and he can’t risk losing Newt’s precious moment of sanity.

“Newt, do you trust me?” he asks on a serious tone, looking the biologist in the eye.

His husband’s brow furrows. “Yeah, yes, of course I do, what kind of question is that?”

“Good, because I have an idea,” Hermann says, then takes a few steps back to roll the trolley with the equipment in.

“Is that…? Dude, why would you bring—No. No, no, no,” Newt stammers, as his mind makes the connection. “That is a _terrible_ idea, Hermann.”

“Yes, it is. It’s the sort of idea that _you_ would have, not I. It is, however, the best idea. It makes perfect sense, you and I both know it,” Hermann states confidently.

Newt smiles weakly. “I’ve started to rub off on you those past few years, haven’t I? It’s a goddamn brilliant idea, but I can’t let you do this. What if it fucks you up too? I can’t allow that, Herm, I couldn’t live with myself.”

“I couldn’t live with myself, either, if I don’t do this. I made a vow to you, twice. Once silently in the Drift, and once three years ago, when you asked me to marry you. I swore to share your burdens and I can no longer stand on the other side of the glass and watch your mind deteriorate, as I have absolutely no means of helping you. My poor heart cannot handle it anymore. I’m doing this for the both of us. If you care for me at all, say yes.”

Newt is quiet for a moment, green eyes scanning Hermann’s face. Hermann fears that he’s lost the control, that he’s slipped away again, but then Newt reaches down and picks the Pons up. He places one end on Hermann’s head, fingers lingering on Hermann’s cheeks in a warm caress. Then he puts other end on his own head, and afterwards drags Hermann toward the bed. They mere inches away from each other, in the center of the mattress, Hermann’s bad leg hanging from the edge and Newt’s own legs folded behind him.

Hermann picks up the console board, firing up the system and setting the parameters for the neural handshake. Before he can press enter, Newt’s hand covers his own.

“If they get to you—” he starts.

“Then we’ll take over the world, together,” Hermann finishes, with a wicked grin. He jokes, of course, because he’d rather they went into the Drift with a smile, and not with contingencies clouding their judgement.

Newt tilts his head, as though he’s considering the idea, before mirroring Hermann’s grin. “It’s a win-win, then.”

They press the button together.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The Drift is silent, at first. Hermann fears that he’d entered the wrong parameters.

 _You_ never _enter the wrong parameters, ‘cause you’re a smartass little shit and I love you to bits,_ comes Newt’s voice from the back of his head, echoing loudly and pulling Hermann into a bright swirl of affection, fear, longing, suffering, and joy.

Their house in Berlin is surrounded in contentment and love, but also nightmares and restless anxiety, Hermann’s love and poems and tea and grilled sandwiches making Newt forget that there’s something wrong with him—

His young years flash quickly, images Hermann has seen before, of monster blockbusters, medals and ribbons from science fairs, his uncle’s old CDs, visits at the psychiatrist and ADD medicine, the emails from Hermann that made him so happy, meeting Hermann and both of them screwing up, tattoos slowly crawling their way up his sleeves, meeting Hermann again and finding his place in the world—

Fragments and distorted flashes of dark alleyways and blueish tentacles swimming lazily in formaldehyde blur Newt’s side of the Drift, like a glitch forming a loop inside his mind that he can’t escape—

There’s Newt, staring at the white ceiling of his room in the facility, trying to remember what he’s done as his fingers bleed, nails broken and throbbing, the walls around him scratched and tainted with red strokes. Looming over him there’s a tall, dark figure, hunched over Newt with six long, claw-like members clucking above him. When Hermann approaches it, it hisses loudly, turning its insect-like head toward Hermann, and Hermann is pulled into another swirl, a twisted one that suffocates him and tears his mind apart—

 _Help me, Herm_ , he hears Newt, before the Drift swallows him.

They’re separated, a universe away and it’s not easy, because this miserable host has a _soulmate_ and first they must ward him off, otherwise their host is incorruptible. They squirm every day, nestling themselves, fighting for control over one neuron at a time, making the host distance himself from the idiotic soulmate. They’ll never understand it, the notion of love and affection, they’re one already, always one, always conquering together. Those humans, they’re alone and puny, but their host has another mind sharing his, a whole that they _must_ tear apart—

Receiving that offer from Shao Industries makes them clamor, because it’s the best opportunity, the quickest way to their goal, to conquering, to destroying, but the soulmate intervenes and their hold on the host isn’t as strong as the host’s emotions. They’re furious, and getting furious by the second; but suddenly they aren’t. The soulmate was touched too, by them, they saw his analytic mind, a mind worthy for waging war, a mind they would respect—

They’re still strong enough, so when the soulmate’s touch fades, they exploit the grand ideas in their host’s little mind, engineered with what little he knows of their glorious species, they make him type ingenious emails to Shao Industries, filled with dark intent. They make him delete them afterwards, erasing their trace, because they don’t trust the soulmate, the soulmate would be their undoing—

They want back to Hong Kong, where they’d have access to more power to implement their plan, to bring chaos to this world, but the soulmate’s tether to their host still lingers, no matter how much they fight it, wrecking their plans—

It’s not enough, they’re too far, the mind is weak, they crave the touch of home, and they’re angered by the machinery scanning the host’s mind—their mind now—so, they change their tactic. When their host gets ahold of a substance that makes him susceptible to their claws, pills that weaken the resistance and the will to fight, they hiss with pleasure—while the host is vulnerable, they make him leave the soulmate’s bed in the middle of the night, in search of home—

They cackle when they find a tiny branch of the Cult worshipping them, somewhere near the outskirts of Berlin, well-funded and naïve. They have a well-preserved occipital lobe in their temple and the host is agile enough to sneak in and steal it. They make him build a system from garbage, digging in the trash of a nearby tech company—

The host welcomes the rush of the Drift, as though his wretched little mind needed it all those years; he needed it because _they_ needed it and the hivemind nourishes them, gives them strength. They store the lobe and the machinery away to safety, they’ll come back later for more. The host’s nose bleeds and he drags himself back home, where the soulmate pulls him back from the Drift. They’re not bothered, much. Their plan is on track now, but they can’t help thinking that the soulmate _knows_ —

They get back to work, sending emails, hiding their work from the soulmate’s suspicious eyes. The Cultists they’ve stolen from find the host and tries to beat up him in an alleyway, ambushing and almost injuring him. They take over with fury and attack their assailant. The host isn’t strong enough to deliver worthy punches, but he’s good enough to defend himself and win—

Hong Kong is within their grasp and they rejoice, but their victory is short-lived. The white ceiling, the nosy, broken little soulmate locking them up away from resources, they can’t work, all they can do is make the host scream and hurt himself, hurt others, hurt whatever they can because they’re angry, medicine making them angrier and host weaker and vulnerable, but with no means to _exploitdestroyconquer—_

The soulmate is here. They’re scared, illogically scared, and that makes them even more furious, they release the latch on the wretched host, claws detaching from neurons, from memories, from emotions, so they could attack, maim, _kill_ the soulmate. He’d make a finer host for them, even with his broken body; new ideas to exploit, a less cluttered mind, a way to escape suspicion, to leave this room—

They jump forward, seething—

 _No_ , Hermann says. He lifts his cane, pushing it forward, stopping the silhouette from approaching him. Claws cluck, screech tormenting Hermann’s ears.

 _Newt, love, get up_ , Hermann urges his catatonic husband, who’s still lying in the bed, eyes wide open, fingers trembling.

The silhouette’s shape gets smaller and smaller, and Newt swings his legs over the edge of the bed, bare feet touching the floor. The hivemind screeches again, more loudly.

_You will die, here and now. You will never come back. You will leave us be, his mind is not for you to corrupt, and neither is mine. You will never touch this world again, you will no longer haunt us._

Hermann can’t tell his mind from Newt’s. The words are spoken in both of their voices at once, and with each statement, the creature’s form diminishes, until it’s nothing more than an actual insect crawling on the floor. Hermann lowers his cane to whack it, but it scurries off under the bed, out of their sights.

 

~*~*~*~

 

“Newt,” Hermann gasps when the Drift divides their minds.

Newt’s eyes are closed, blood dripping slowly out of one nostril, landing on the immaculate white collar of his hospital gown. He lies in an awkward position on the bed, having fallen during the Drift. He doesn’t appear to be breathing and Hermann’s heart briefly stops, panic overloading all of his organs.

He rips the Pons away from his head, tossing it aside, then lurches forward to do the same to Newt. He desperately checks for a pulse, for a rise and fall of the chest. Newt opens his eyes two painful seconds later, making Hermann sob in relief and envelop the other man into a crushing embrace.

“Herm—you’re suffocating me,” Newt’s voice is muffled by Hermann’s cardigan.

“How are you feeling? Are they gone?” Hermann pulls back to wipe the blood of Newt’s face with the handkerchief he keeps in his pocket. His own nose is bleeding, but he couldn’t possibly care less.

“Yeah, I think so. I can’t be sure, but man, you’ve no idea how good that felt. You were amazing, I can’t believe you did that,” Newt mutters, looking up at Hermann in awe.

They fall into comfortable silence, their breathing still calibrating after the rush of the Drift.

“They called me your _soulmate_ ,” Hermann deadpans, the Drift still strong in his mind.

“Well, I can’t say that they were wrong,” Newt says, half-shrugging and plastering a contagious smile on his face. It then fades slowly, as he remembers what he felt in the Drift too, what he did under their control.

Hermann is about to get up and call for medical attention, but, before he can do that, Hansen and Mako, along with a handful of doctors, swarm the room. Hansen is about to bombard him with questions when Hermann remembers a very important detail from the Drift.

“Liwen Shao. Call her as soon as possible. Whatever project she required Newt’s aid for, it must be stopped. They had Newt send manipulated work over to her company, and our defenses could be in grave danger,” Hermann says with urgency.

Hansen nods and exits the room in a hurry. Mako stays behind, helping Hermann to his feet, and asks him a bunch of question that Hermann barely registers. The doctors take Newt away to another room, for testing, and Hermann is so dizzy, head pounding, and body numb.

He faints, head rolling onto Mako’s shoulder and cane slipping away from his hand.

 

~*~*~*~

 

He wakes up in an unfamiliar room, head still throbbing as the events of the Drift come back to him.

“Hey, you’re finally awake,” Newt’s voice comes from somewhere nearby. “You were out for quite some time there, you all right?”

He raises himself on his elbows, eyes mapping out a hospital room with twin beds. Newt is to his left, munching on a granola bar.

“Don’t worry, I fainted too, when they were scanning my brain for the hundredth time. We’re getting a bit old for Drifting, I think,” Newt says quietly, studying the wrapper.

“What did the doctors say?” Hermann asks, anxious to find out the answer.

Newt is chewing, so he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he gets up from the bed, with more energy than Hermann has seen in the past months, and crosses the room. He points to the brain scan posted on a light panel.

“I asked them to leave it, so you could see it when you wake up,” Newt says, after he finishes chewing. His index finger lands on a tiny spot circled with black marker on the scan. “I’m Precursor-free, on all fronts. This is the only spot still affected and there is a small chance they could be back, but I’ll be here for monthly check-ups and I have you to Drift with if it gets too much, of course, that’s only if you want to.”

“I want to, obviously, don’t be daft. Though this time it was a bit much,” Hermann admits.

“Drifting with a Precursor-infested mind will do that to you,” Newt says, snorting. He walks to the trash bin and throws away the now empty wrapper. Then he crosses the room again, this time coming toward Hermann’s bed instead of his own. “Scoot over. I want cuddles.”

Hermann rolls his eyes and makes space for him, even though the bed clearly wasn’t made for two persons. Newt climbs in under the blanket, mindful of Hermann’s bad leg. The biologist sighs happily as he buries his head into Hermann’s chest.

“I haven’t thanked you,” he whispers, after a full minute of silence.

“There is no need for you to thank me.”

“Yeah, there is. I’d be lost without you. When they were in my head, they kept making me imagine what my life would have been without you, how they would have totally taken over me and made me kill you and bring them back to Earth. You fought them when I no longer could. You saved me. All those years, that’s what you’ve been doing. You’ve been saving me all along, so, thank you, Hermann, for being here, for being you, and for loving me when I thought no one ever would.”

“Are you quite finished?” Hermann asks, chest warm and fuzzy. His hand finds itself in Newt’s hair.

“Yeah. Wait, no. I love you a lot, lot, lot, and please don’t ever leave me. Okay, now I’m done.”

Hermann exhales loudly, in annoyance. “You pest. You impossible halfwit. You detestable lovely being. First of all, you are more idiotic than I have been repeatedly telling you in the past sixteen years if you actually believe that you would be the only one lost without our relationship. You owe me no gratitude. Had our situations been reversed, I believe you would have done the same. Second of all, I love you, as well. Now, you will shut your mouth and go to sleep. Heaven knows we both deserve some rest.”

Newt laughs, and the vibration travels through Hermann’s body. “All right, dude, no need to be so grumpy.”

One hand in Newt’s hair and the other wrapped protectively around the smaller man’s waist, Hermann closes his eyes, aware of the Drift that is lulling them both to sleep, still tethering their minds.

They dream of green parks in bright sunlight, of dog-eared poem books, and of shared laboratories split in two with yellow tape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and sticking with me along this ride! I hope you enjoyed the story and please don't hesitate to let me know your thoughts below :D


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